Everything I Used to be is Coming Back to Torture Me

It is an odd feeling to wake up without knowing where you are or how you got there. However, Clover knew the feeling well. She often woke up not entirely sure where she was and with minimal knowledge of how she got there. Oh, the information eventually made its way through her brain lethargic with drugs, but within the few moments it took, she panicked.

This time she didn’t panic. The room wasn’t unpleasant. She lay in a bed with a plain sheet tucked neatly beneath her underarms. Machines sat about her bed like sentries, but they all beeped tranquilly and evenly and therefore did not alarm her. Bright florescent lights overhead illuminated every nook and cranny of the room, leaving no space for shadows or darkness. The room smelled of sterilization and cleanliness, one hell of a lot better than where she normally woke up. So rather than panicking, Clover relaxed and let her mind work itself towards remembering.

As Clover lay in silence staring blankly at the opposite wall, memories returned and the puzzle pieces begin to drop into place. Recovery of memory started at the end—the last thing she remembered—and rewound, going slowly backwards until she saw what had caused this all. It looked like powdered sugar, but Clover knew it wasn’t. She saw herself nudge it into a few neat lines and then lean down over it, inhaling each line like a rapid fire gun. The Clover of Before—she wasn’t sure how long, hours, days, weeks?—straightened back up, grabbed the bottle of vodka sitting beside her, and took a long swig.

She felt superhuman. It felt awesome. But somewhere deep in her mind, somewhere where the Former Clover still survived, the Former Clover with the religious foster parents, the Former Clover who had never had a sip of alcohol pass by her lips or knew what the drag of a joint tasted like, she knew that she’d taken it too far, she’d done too much. She felt superhuman for ten minutes, sitting in the living room of her new apartment watching the sky outside the window, and then something in her body changed and she felt plugs being pulled, her body shutting down, throwing up its defenses. She’d worn those defenses thin over the past two months; now she would pay the price.

Her vision became a tunnel, then a narrow tunnel, then barely a pinprick. She wondered if this was what death felt like, a slow descent into a dark eternity. She reached for her bottle of vodka, extra sinful inside her underage stomach, but only succeeded in knocking the damned thing over. She flailed for it and somehow saved it before too much was sacrificed to the Carpet King. In the last few moments of light, she brought the bottle to her lips. Hell, if salvation was such a long way off, what would be just a little bit more of a setback?

Clover had passed out with the knowledge that she very well would never wake back up. It surprised her now that she had ever opened her eyes again. She hardly deserved to. She’d thrown her life away for drugs and alcohol. She hoped that God hadn’t saved her in lieu of someone else, and that if He had, she hoped that she wouldn’t disappoint Him in the end.

The door opened. Clover had not realized that she had closed her eyes. When she opened them, she felt the grogginess that comes with being awoken from sleep. Perhaps she had dozed off and dreamt of her memories? It took her several moments to find the door, but when she did, it was to find Matt closing the door behind him. In his hand he held a bag of chips from a vending machine. Clover felt a little bit like crying upon seeing him. Why had she ever thought of allowing herself to lose him, to lose all of her friends?

“Hey, you’re awake,” Matt said softly with a smile, walking over to Clover’s bed and taking a seat. Clover stared at him like she hadn’t seen him in years, wondering why she’d never noticed what color his eyes were, or how much deeper his left dimple was than his right. “Uhhh…Thanks for the creeper stare?”

Clover realized how weird she must look staring at him like she was and quickly desisted, blushing and staring down at her folded hands. “I’m sorry, I just don’t understand why I almost gave you guys up.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I was just wondering why I chose…choose drugs over my friends,” Clover elaborated. “You guys have given me so much…And I almost threw all that away? For a high? I don’t see the logic in that now; why did I see any logic in it then?”

“Right now you’re normal Clover. Then you were junkie Clover. There’s a big difference between the two,” Matt explained gently. “You can’t exactly be held accountable for your actions when you were all drugged out. You weren’t the same. The girl you became wasn’t you. Sure, I didn’t see much of the normal Clover before junkie Clover took over, but I saw enough to know that you aren’t you when you’re taking drugs.”

“So…who found me?”

“Zack,” Matt answered. “He went to your apartment to see if you’d settled in alright and everything. Luckily your door was unlocked so when he knocked and you didn’t answer he could walk right in. Probably saved your life. He said he walked in and at first couldn’t see you but once he went around the couch he found you slumped against the coffee table with a bottle in your hand. At first he thought you’d drunk too much and passed out, but then he saw the credit card and the straw and he put two and two together.”

“How long have I been…sleeping? Passed out? In a coma?”

“You’ve been…passed out, I guess, 30 hours about,” Matt said. “Zack came with you in the ambulance and told the doctor that you’d been snorting crack. They gave you naloxone and you began to improve.”

“So…what happens now?” Clover asked. She figured there had to be something. Surely she wouldn’t be allowed to overdose on drugs and alcohol and then just be released back into temptation.

“I am not entirely sure,” Matt said. “I’ll go get the doctor. Will you be okay by yourself?”

“Yeah,” Clover replied with a nod. Matt rose to his feet and left the room, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Clover studied her hands as she waited for Matt to return with the doctor. In a way, if you really thought about it, her hands had more than likely caused all of this. It was with the skill of her hands that she joined Avenged Sevenfold. And if she hadn’t joined Avenged, then none of this would’ve ever happened. She would’ve been stuck in the world of safety and innocence; she probably would’ve gone to some Christian college studying God knows what where even the word “alcohol” was cause for expulsion.

But she didn’t blame this on her band mates. It wasn’t their fault. Sure, they had introduced her to alcohol, but she had been the one who had taken it all too far, who had taken the headlong dive into addiction. And when the alcohol wasn’t enough, she had turned to drugs. None of them could have predicted or prevented anything that had happened. She was grateful to them more than anything, for showing her the world outside of the tiny bubble she’d been living in for the past eight years.

Matt was not gone long. Within a few minutes, the door reopened and Matt walked in, this time accompanied by a male doctor in a white coat carrying a clipboard. The doctor smiled and walked towards Clover as Matt closed the door, extending his hand.

“Hello, Clover, I’m Dr. Martins,” the man said as Clover shook his hand. “How are you feeling?”

“A little confused, I suppose,” Clover answered. “But other than that, I’m fine. I think.”

“Confusion is expected,” Dr. Martins assured her. “And I must warn you, this road you’re about to go down is not an easy one. It is full of potholes and obstacles and hardships, but it is the right road. Once you reach the end of this journey, you will agree.”

“What happens now, Doctor?” Clover asked. Dr. Martins looked around at Matt and received a nod allowing him to take the one seat beside the bed. Martins took it and Matt sat down on Clover’s other side at the foot of the bed.

“Well, since you overdosed we’ve signed you up for a rehab center,” Martins explained, taking a business card out of his pocket and handing it to Clover. “It’s a fabulous place with a low percentage of eventual relapse. I think you will flourish there and find yourself again.”

The name on the business card was Serenity Sobriety Center. Clover didn’t recognize the town name.

“It’s about two hours north of Huntington Beach,” Martins continued.

“I want to fix myself, Doctor,” Clover said, looking up from the business card. “I don’t like what I’ve become.”

“That’s very good, Clover,” Martins answered, smiling gently at her. “It’s a big step for addicts to take accepting that they do have a problem. And I have complete confidence that you will better yourself there.”

“Thank you, Doctor,” Clover said.

“No problem,” Martins answered, rising to his feet. “Just push that call button over on the table there if you have any problems, okay?”

“Yes, sir,” Clover replied. Martins nodded, shook Matt’s hand, and left.

“So, are you ready for more visitors? Everyone will be glad to see that you’re awake,” Matt asked. Clover nodded eagerly.